Arc Philosophy & Knowledge: Part 25 – Optimism Knowledges (Patreon)

As written previously, Optimism is a philosophy I have mixed feelings on, part of that is due to the unthematic inclusion of aspects that border on or move into narcissism at times and part of it is simply due to there being other Tier 2 Philosophies that I simply engage with more. I'm not fond of the first issue, but the second one is simply personal taste caused by the nature of a sand box game. When you've got so many different elements that can be combined in different ways not every single one is going to be a hit with every player.

The core conceit of Optimism is to have a very strong rank up table with many powerful statistical gains combined with a focus around keeping at max survival and having knowledges that all tend to offer trade offs or bonuses that only trigger with the right circumstances. In some ways it reminds me of Lanternism, which is a Tier I philosophy that has knowledges that do nothing without support from other events/knowledges but when you are a Tier 2 philosophy there is a higher standard that you will be held to and I think for myself that's where Optimism falls down. I still love ALL of the art though, it's wonderful.

Positivity – Core tenet

Type: Support

Stages: 3

Observations Required: 3/5/-

Advancement: Have max survival at end of showdown/gain +1 per unspent reroll token/-

Lumi Costs: 2/4/5

Bonuses: +1 reroll token if at max survival on arrival / +2 reroll token if at max survival on arrival / +2 reroll token if at max survival on arrival gain a reroll token if you roll a 9+ when rerolling

Parallels: Survival of the Fittest, Infinite Lives

I'm not one who much cares for mechanics that can end up doing nothing at all except occupying space. Positivity is a knowledge that comes close to the edge of that void, but doesn't fall off because there are various ways to ensure that one starts the showdown with max survival. Herb Gathering, the Manhunter's Sonorous Lantern and Arrival Survival gear such as the Dragon Armor or Lantern Armor chest pieces are examples of this type of mechanic and they all also offer other benefits so you are not expending a slot in your gear grid just to ensure Positivity is activated. Also nemesis showdowns offer a tool for this because there is no hunt phase to bleed survival from you.

Completing the first stage of Positivity is for me the most awkward part of this knowledge, we do have ways of replenishing survival during the showdown (including a knowledge further down here), but having to do that for three entire showdowns is about one too many showdowns for my liking (it is easier to have max arrival survival against nemesis monsters). It is fortunate that once we are into stage two we only need to ensure that we have max survival on arrival (I love saying “arrival survival”, it's such a fun pairing) and the advancement is instead tied to our reroll tokens. On average we again need three showdowns to complete this knowledge (technically two and a half), but if somehow we can get reroll tokens from any other source Positivity II will count those also because it does not care where the reroll tokens come from, only that they have the properties of a reroll token.

Our final form gives us 2 reroll tokens if we have max arrival survival and also a 20% chance of regaining those reroll tokens when expending them. Again it will work for any kind of reroll tokens, so there is synergy if you can generate those elsewhere.

Positivity is doing something very powerful for sure, but it also has a lot of checks and balances tied into it and I have found that makes it very clunky to operate. This inelegance is the main thing that has held me back from really enjoying this one.

Believe in Yourself

Type: Passive Defenses in exchange for the loss of active ones

Stages: 3

Observations Required: 3/4/-

Advancement: No filled heavy injury boxes / no filled injury boxes.

Lumi Costs: 2/3/6

Bonuses: You are guardless: +1 evasion token if you have max survival on arrival / You are guardless: +2 evasion token on arrival if you have max survival on arrival

Parallels: Monster Grease

Speaking of clunky, Believe in Yourself is another awkward knowledge to operate. There's a lot here that echoes the issues that surround positivity. We get something that is powerful (evasion tokens), but we need to have max arrival survival and we are inflicted with Guardless which means we can't Block/Dodge/Deflect/Ignore hits.

Guardless: A special rule. A survivor with guardless may not dodge, block, deflect, or ignore hits. Attack rolls can still miss guardless survivors, as they still factor their evasion in.

The first level of this knowledge is again about one observation too much for what you get, though it is a bit easier to level up if you have this knowledge on a supporting or ranged survivor as they can play a lot safer. Knowledges that take an entire showdown to gain 1 observation are some of the slowest knowledges in the game, this knowledge here is asking for seven observations to complete it. That means usually 7 lantern years unless we have shortcuts like special showdowns or free observations. That's a long time to end up Guardless with +3 evasion tokens and it gets harder to push through the level II version due to needing zero injuries rather than no heavy ones. We can support that with healing tools if we have them (Acanthus, Herb Grinder Knowledge) however healing is not a common thing in KDM so normally the answer will be additional soak and positioning to stop the survivor from taking that heavy injury in the first place.

There are great things you can do with evasion tokens, if you can stack evasion enough to push the monster accuracy to the "Hit on a 10+" floor and then use decent armor points to soak the remaining 10% of hits that do finally get though it will be very strong. That means the pay off here is good, but considering the late period where Tier 2 philosophies turn up it's not out of the ordinary. These should be powerful and often they are very much so, but Guardless at every level of this knowledge is a heck of a handbrake.

Just like Positivity what we get here is good, but we have so many checks and balances that it doesn't perform to the same standard when compared to what other other similar level/tier philosophies are doing.

Better Than This

Type: Support

Stages: 1

Observations Required: N/A

Advancement: When you suffer a brain trauma gain +1 Dangerous Observation

Lumi Costs: 3

Bonuses: Once Per Showdown during your act you may convert up to 5 insanity to survival

Parallels: Silk Boots

Better than this exists mostly as a tool to help Optimism survivors complete Positivity (we can see this with how much the Optimism ranks hand this knowledge out) and it does a good job at that. It's also fine if a non-optimism survivor gains it without paying lumi. If it does appear in the Forum however I'm less thrilled about that because this isn't something I want to pay 3 lumi for in most cases. Forum slots for knowledges are limited even if you have a huge amount of lumi sloshing around inside everyone's brain cases. Still, survivors with a lot of Insanity or tools that can generate or replenish insanity can make use of this and the drawback of losing the knowledge and suffering a disorder may be worth the risk in that case.

One such example is Silk Armor, with the Silk Boots having this unique and powerful ability.

You can convert 3 survival into 6 insanity and then turn it back into 5 survival and 1 insanity. Edge case interactions like this can add a lot to the power of a mechanic, so it is worth considering the use of Optimism and Spidicules together if you are picking your philosophies for the a spider filled settlement campaign.

I quite like the design of this particular knowledge, however, the power level of it doesn't fit well with what Tier 2 is normally doing for a survivor. Like a lot of the other elements of this philosophy I find it compares better with Tier 1 philosophies rather than tier 2. That does leave me wondering if Optimism was originally a Tier 1 philosophy, as being blindly optimistic about the world of Kingdom Death seems thematically a good fit for the kind of naivety an early survivor may have about the entire affair. Also these kind of exchange/gains are more useful to survivors in the early to early/mid part of campaigns as they are the times where there are not a lot of departing survival bonuses and being able to convert directly a resource

Braggart

Type: Support

Stages: 1

Observations Required: N/A

Advancement: If you are encouraged, gain a dangerous observation.

Lumi Costs: 2

Bonuses: When encouraging another survivor gain +2 survival and they lose 1 survival

Parallels: None really, though it does combine with other encourage based cards/mechanics.

Our final Optimism Knowledge is the one I am the least fond of, it is another knowledge that thematically doesn't present optimism and instead falls again into that trap of instead describing a narcissist. I wouldn't mind Narcissism as a philosophy in the future, but being a Braggart is not a trait one links with optimism.

Mechanically this operates as providing a “free” encourage, as from the perspective of the hunt group overall the total amount of survival remains the same (-1, +2, -1 results in 0), it simply gets redistributed from the encouraged to the braggart. So that is solid enough and gets better if you have survivors who can replenish their survival through other mechanics (such as the Silk Boots shown above or Survival Tokens). The Dangerous Observation on this knowledge is also a lot easier to control for as well, not only can you wait for the normal stand up to apply to the Braggart, but once you've completed the chore of “eating your greens” aka gaining a Fist & Tooth master you rarely need to worry about encouraging the Braggart at all.

I think if Braggart had been themed around an obnoxious and tiring level of optimism rather than being focused around one's own greatness I would be fine with this one. In its current form this knowledge is such a sore thumb in a game that does a usually excellent job of thematic tying of mechanics together and as I am someone who is a roleplayer/Games Master ahead of a board gamer the friction here doesn't sit right with me.

Final Thoughts

Optimism is for me a bit in focused, a bit a mess and a bit undercooked. It has elements of Narcissism mixed into it and this makes the philosophy hard for me to gel with because good strong thematics matter a lot to me, especially in the arc system.

Putting that gripe aside, this is a philosophy that has an interesting goal, that of strong rank up, weaker knowledges. This makes it a mechanical mirror to Homicidalism which is a philosophy that you want to avoid having too many survivors inflicted with, and instead you rank up a survivor with the goal of adding the knowledges they unlock to survivors from other philosophies.

Optimism inverts that by wanting players to have a lot of Optimists with philosophies from elsewhere. The rank up table is the juicy part of this experience and the knowledges are mostly the chaff. You pursue optimism for the statistical buffs to the individual survivor, not growth for the settlement as a whole.

That's the mechanical bit which holds Optimism down for myself, while there are only four knowledges here I don't really want to see some of them turning up in the Forum. Either these knowledges are weak, situational or just too expensive for what you get (both Lumi and slot costs) and when I compare all of this package to the other Tier 2 offerings of Collectivism, Regalism, Verminism and Gourmandism it is Optimism lands in 5th place.

Something will always be in last place when you rank things, but I would prefer it to be a situational last place ranking depending on other factors. Instead Optimism is something that I am always going to put behind the other four (and probably behind any new Tier 2 philosophies that turn up in the future, for example Gatherism). The opportunity costs of this one are simply to high for my solo playstyle. This Optimism is taking up a philosophy slot that I want dedicated to bugs, food, communism or diagonal swords and its knowledges are taking up space in the forum and on survivors that I want instead to be dedicated to other things. Perhaps as a Tier I philosophy this would perform closer to my tastes (I do think the game would benefit from a lot more Tier I and III philosophies as we have a glut of Tier 2 ones) , but right now it is in the company of many of my favourite philosophies and that is a very competitive area.